Give Yourself
by mostlyranebows
Summary: Hey guys! I don't own the characters Shane or Reed, they belong to the fabulous CP COULTER'S 'Dalton'  You should check it out.  Also, I haven't actually come up with a name for this Rane Fic so any suggestions would be highly appreciated!


Shane always knew the plan.

It seemed relatively simple. Grow up, and live at home, and when he was old enough he would leave.

And come out to his parents.

But that was the part that didn't seem so simple, with the way that his father acted when Blaine came out, what he did to Micah. The thought sent shivers down his spine. But Shane knew that he wasn't going to hide from his parents anymore, he couldn't. He had to be strong.

It took longer for Shane to work up the courage than he thought it would take, he tried, time and time again but he couldn't bring himself to it. It was when Shane was at the age of 21, he had been flatting with some friends from his university for a long time, so it wasn't like he had to live with his father... But his father was his father, he couldn't deny that. So yes, it did take longer than Shane thought, but he did it.

Shane was strong. He came out to his parents; admittedly, he zoned out to hear his father's reaction. There was punches thrown, there was cuss. But he would never regret being him; he had learned that from everything that he had been through.

When Shane left, it was much harder than he thought it was going to be, he saw his brother Blaine before leaving, with Kurt. They were living in New York and Kurt loving every minute of it. He had told Blaine what he had done. Which lead to Blaine having a very heated discussion with his father, which really did not end well for either of them. After Shane had gotten through that, the two brothers had a discussion about where Shane was going to go, and what he was planning to do. To be honest, Shane had never thought properly about what he was going to do, his plan was to travel the world for a bit, first stop Italy, where he planned to get a small job there and stay for 3 months. Blaine then proceeded to ask Shane how exactly he planned to do that when he could not speak a word of Italian...

But Blaine was wrong. Shane had been studying Italian, and he managed with small talk, so Ha! Blaine then told Shane that he would miss him, and that he was welcome to come stay with him and Kurt anytime. Shane immediately thought about the time when he and his father had got into a fight and he had come to stay with Blaine for a month, which ended in Blaine kicking his brother out saying that he couldn't scavenge off him for the rest of his life. And that was when Shane decided to attend university.

He also had to admit, that this was also the reason why he found leaving so hard. Shane had met some pretty amazing people there, people that were like him. They liked to dance, just like him. That was probably due to the fact that he was taking a dance course, but still. He became very close to one person in particular, and, because of the fact that he wore his heart on his sleeve, he fell in love. For a long time he tried to hide it, deny it. He should have known that it wouldn't work. So yes, he did fall in love with a boy by the name of Jesmond, the boy was in love with a girl. Shane tried; the fact that the boy was straight wasn't going to stop him. But all of his efforts failed, Shane grew to live with the fact that he was never going to have him. It hurt at first, like hell. There were many times where Shane just wanted to leave, but he didn't, because it was Jesmond that gave him the strength to come out to his parents, to his dad.

So know here he was, on a plane to Italy, he was going to miss Blaine, he was going to miss Kurt, the diva that he was. He was going to miss Jesmond, he still loved him, and he would no longer deny that. This is what was best he thought to himself. A new start sounded fantastic, a new start in a country that he had been dreaming of visiting ever since he was a little boy when he and Blaine went to a holiday program that gave lessons, one of them included learning about different countries, he had learnt about Italy, and from that time on, he wanted nothing more than to go to the country of love, music, art and pure beauty. Every time Shane thought about it he got a warm feeling in his stomach.

The plane ride was long, but very far from boring. On the plane, Shane had successfully managed to watch 3 movies, eat dessert before dinner and make a new friend. Her name was Isadora, 63 years old. She was on her way to Italy to attempt to find her summer love from 40 years ago, his name was Ralph. She told Shane enchanting tails of their time together on the beaches of Thailand, lounging in the sun and making love on the beach. Isadora had completely forgotten about him until 3 weeks ago she had found an old box with some items that he had given her. These items included a flower, some shells from the beach and an address that he had given her so that she could write to him. Unfortunately, as soon as she came back to America, her parents had expected her to marry the boy with the money and he undeniably swept Isadora off her feet.

Her husband had died 3 years ago, and she had forgotten about Ralph. Until the day that she was moving and found the box. She realised that she never really forgot about him, but was forced to put her love for him in the back of her mind so that it wouldn't pain the boy with the money.

She told Shane that it was a long shot to find him again, but she couldn't die knowing that she didn't try. You never forget you first love, ever.

This all sounded so romantic to Shane, something that only happened in movies. He hoped from the bottom of his heart that the little old lady would find Ralph, and that it would be all that she hoped for.

The flight came ended and despite the aching pain in his butt, it was a pretty decent flight. He sat and watched as everyone walked off the plane, procrastinating leaving himself. He knew that as soon as he got off the plane he would have to face the worry of where to stay, how he was going to pay for it, where he would start looking for his job. But the thing that scared him the most was that Italy wouldn't be all that he hoped for. Finally, Shane left when he couldn't wait on the plane for any longer. He walked slowly and carefully towards the exit of the plane, be dismissed politely by the flight attendant. He found himself wondering how the attendants managed to keep the same plastered smile on their faces until every single passenger left the plane.

The airport in Rome was spectacular; it wasn't just the fact that it was beautiful, or the fact that there were so many beautiful people there. It was the atmosphere. Shane felt giddy with excitement because for the first time, he was on his own. A terrifying thought, but one that made him beam with joy. This was it, this was really it, and there was no turning back now.

Somehow, Shane managed to find his way to a decent hotel on the outskirts on Rome. It was small, quant. It had character. As soon as Shane rested his head on the pillow he fell asleep, it was a long flight, and it had really taken its toll.

When Shane woke up the next morning, it must have been midday, because the sun was blazing through the curtains. He tried to roll over on his bed restlessly but he couldn't go back to sleep. Shane suddenly remembered where he was and felt much, much more awake. Although he wanted to explore, he procrastinated getting out of bed. He would have to find a job, somewhere simple that didn't require him to speak.

After lying there for a good twenty minutes, he decided to get up and make himself semi-decent. Placing on his jeans and his white v-neck t-shirt with some suspenders that he had brought two years ago.

Trying to find his way around Rome was much harder that Shane had anticipated. He knew that he was going to have trouble with it, as he could only speak basic Italian and could not read a word of it. But being Shane, he just thought he could fluke it and manages.

Eventually, he found his way to the centre of Rome, it was so beautiful. Shane stopped multiple times to take in the scenery around him.

After a good few hours, he decided to stop and have some coffee and something to eat. Even the food was amazing; it was like everything from home amplified by ten. After he finished eating, he started walking out of the cafe to notice a sign on the window that read _Lavoro Richieste! _From what Shane gathered, was that back in America, people usually placed signs on the window when they were advertising for a job.

It didn't take long for Shane to pull out his translator and type in _Lavoro Richieste _to double check. It was exactly what Shane thought, it translated to _job inquires. _Shane needed to prepare what he was going to go in and say... Why didn't he think of this sooner?

_Hi my name is Shane and I was wondering about the job offer – Ciao mi chiamo Shane e mi chiedevo circa l'offerta di lavoro_

Ok, so he knew what he was going to say. He walked towards the counter where a young girl was working; she had long brown hair and blue eyes. She was very beautiful; he would have advanced on his thought if he swung that way.

"Ciao, mi chi-chiamo Shane e m-m-mi chiedevo circa l'offerta di lavoro" Shane stuttered. The girl laughed at Shane which caused him to turn bright red.

"Don't worry, I speak English" Her accent was pouring through her words as she spoke "Next time you attempt to speak Italian, you might want to work on your pronunciation. My name is Ophelia, the job offer is for cleaning dishes" Shane attempted to gather his thoughts, but failed. How many people speak English he thought "A job in the kitchen would probably be best for you seeing as you aren't good at Italian?"

"Oh, umm, yeah! That sounds great actually" Shane said.

"You're from America, no?" Ophelia quirked her head sideways.

"Yep, I am. Is it that obvious?"

"Yes. It is" Shane thought that she was rather frank about the whole situation. He tried didn't he? Better than nothing.

"So, I have offered my name. What is yours? If you are applying for the job I think that I should know your name"

"Right, I'm Shane, Shane Anderson... Do I just need to talk to you about getting the job? Or do I need to see the owner?"

"I am the owner" Shane felt rather embarrassed at this thought, she did look awfully young to be the owner.

"Oh, um, sorry, I just thought that-"

"I do look young for my age, something that is both useful and annoying" She gave Shane a warm smile which settled him down slightly. "Do you have any work experience? Not that you would really need any seeing as it is just washing dishes..."

"No" Shane laughed "I don't actually"

"Okay, Shane. That's fine. How about you come in tomorrow night and we will see how you get along. If we all like you here, you have the job" That was easy, admittedly, Shane thought that it would be much harder getter a job in a foreign country. But this was probably the best deal that he could get; he wouldn't have to speak... The pay would probably not be the best, but he really didn't mind about that.

"Thank you, thank you. Um, sure! I will see you tomorrow. What time should I come in?"

"5pm would be good. You will have the night shift" She smiled at Shane and walked into the kitchen. The boy took this as a hint to leave.

Okay, so he had a job, if everything went well. So now he had 31 hours until he needed to be back at the cafe.

Shane decided that he would do the next plausible thing, he would get a Scooter. Again, this task was much harder that Shane had anticipated. First there was finding a place that sold scooters... and then there was the whole language barrier thing.

Eventually, after a couple of hours he managed to find a place that sold vehicles. Shane walked in the store and was greeted immediately by a rather large man, with a grey moustache and what looked like a toupee.

"Ciao! Il mio e Roberto. Benvenuto nella terra di veicoli. Mi puo aiutare in qualche cosa che potrebbe essere necessario. Come posso aiutarla?" He noticed parts of what the man was saying, Ciao-Hello, Il mio e Roberto- My name is Roberto... Shane suddenly realized that not being able to speak Italian very well at all would become a problem.

"Ciao Roberto, io sono Shane. Io non parlo molto italiano, parlo anche inglese" The man suddenly laughed at him, this was happening far too much today for Shane's liking.

"It okay, I speak little English. So we both try, yes?" The man said with a cheesy smile plastered on his face. "Shane? What you like?" Shane suddenly realized that Roberto was talking to him and snapped out of his thought.

"Oh, um yeah! Sì! I am looking for a scooter" As he was saying this, he was acting out a small role play for the salesman of riding a scooter.

"Sì, sì! Come, I show you, I show you" The man beckoned for Shane to follow him as he made his way further into the store. It was large and mostly white, very flash. There were a reasonable amount of cars and so motorbikes along the left side of the warehouse. As they made their way further and further into the store, Shane started to see some brightly coloured scooters. There was a pale blue one, and an orange one about the same shade as the blue, on pink which was sparkly and bright, and a pale green one that reminded him of the colour pallets back in the 60's.

"Scooters there" Roberto said pointing to the small array of colourful scooters. Shane looked at all of the scooters, his eyes immediately drew to the pale green one. "Do you like?" The man said edging closer to Shane.

"Yeah, they're great!" Roberto clapped his hands together in excitement and Shane couldn't help but smile at his reaction. "How much is the green one" He said walking over and gesturing to the green scooter.

"Sì! That one is 1,850 euros." He stated. Shane had been given a generous sum of money before he left from this mother, he could afford this...

"I will take it" Shane said moving his hands towards the scooter and then pulling them into his chest multiple times.

Then man yelled in excitement at this, it was the second time that the man had shown such enthusiasm. He shuffled his way over to Shane, grabbed his hand a shock vigorously "Grazie! Grazie! Thank you, Thank you!"

Shane was surprised at how little effort the whole process of buying the scooter took. He had never brought himself a car or anything like that; he had received a car for his 18th birthday... But his parents had done all the paper work for that. It took a little less than half an hour and he was out of the shop and on his newly brought scooter. Shane did think that he looked rather badass on the scooter.

It was easy enough to get the hang of controlling it, it was more the difficulty of manoeuvring it around the small streets in Rome.

After a few hours and some serious need of gas, Shane decided to stop and get a bite to eat. He parked his scooter on the side of the road and kicked the stand down. As soon as he turned around, something struck his eyes.

A boy, with strawberry blonde curls, stood on the side of the road. He was like nothing Shane had ever seen before. Everything about his was so spectacular that Shane found it hard to look away! His eyes were big, brown and kind. He was small but perfect, it was like someone had shoved a ranebows and unicorns and everything that was good and magical into one person. How could that even be possible!

Shane stood on the side of the road, flabbergasted at the sight of the boy. Who was he? He stood there and watched as Reed walked into a cafe, unable to make use of his limbs. As soon as the angel disappeared into the cafe, Shane snapped back into reality.

?

He ran across the road getting beeped at several times and yelled at, luckily, he couldn't understand a word of what they were saying so he did not get affected by it. He pushed the door open and found himself inside a quant cafe; it was small, yet very cosy. It had about 6 tables with chairs and a delicious smell that filled throughout the building.

Shane spotted him, standing at the side of the counter. His eyes were looking down to the floor, his hands were clasped together and he was twiddling with his thumbs. Shane also couldn't help but notice that he was wearing black leather gloves...

Shane walked up to the boy, with a million thoughts racing around in his head about what he was going to say. He could be cool about it, but generally when Shane tried that... He failed epically and ended up looking like a complete twat.

Before he knew it he was face to face with the boy, who was giving him a very startled look. Suddenly, Shane got very flustered.

"Hi Shane- I mean, Hi, I'm Shane, you're not Shane. Or are you? Wouldn't that be weird if your name was Shane too! Sorry, I'm rambling. What's your name?"


End file.
